Square de la Gare

The station square offers 8600m² of natural spaces dedicated to pedestrians.

In 1858, Charleville station was inaugurated, the first station on this line, built at the request of Ardennes industrialists. In 1866, the city felt the need to beautify the station square and created a park there with several remarkable trees (Ginkgo biloba, Sequoia, etc.) and its famous bandstand, immortalized a few years later by the celebrated poem "A la musique" (To Music). In this text, the city's enfant terrible, Arthur Rimbaud, scathingly depicts Charleville's bourgeois high society, who come to enjoy the countryside and listen to the "fifes" of the band of the 91st Infantry Regiment from Mézières. His bronze bust, recently restored—the third edition of the first monument in the city honoring the poet—faces that of Gustave Gailly, mayor, deputy, senator, and industrialist of Charleville during Rimbaud's lifetime.

Recently redeveloped in 2010-2011, the square today offers passers-by and Rimbaud lovers following in his footsteps a poetic setting with numerous extracts from his most famous poems.

Another point of interest for this public park is the impressive monument to the Ardennes schoolteachers who died during the First World War.